Calgary city council gave the green light to continue expanding the city’s largest sewage treatment facility, calling it “essential work” to meet the needs of a growing city.
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Council unanimously approved an application to rezone a section of land at 4321 15th St. S.E. to allow for future expansion of the Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant.
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“This is essential work,” Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said before the vote.
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“There’s been a lot of good outcomes to this work besides just providing world-class sewage treatment.”
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The Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant is located off 15th Street S.E., adjacent to the CN rail line and just north of Deerfoot Trail in Alyth/Bonnybrook.
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The 90-year-old facility is the city’s largest wastewater treatment plant, accepting and treating all the sewage from north of Glenmore Trail, as well as from Cochrane, Airdrie and Elbow Valley.
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For the past decade, the city has embarked on a $1-billion plan to expand the plant’s capacity from a population equivalent of 950,000 to 1.37 million, in response to Calgary’s growing population.
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The current expansion project will increase the plant’s treatment capacity by 30 per cent, a city web page states. Work will include flood mitigation measures to protect the site from future flooding (the plant was affected during the 2013 floods) and energy efficiency upgrades to reduce the facility’s greenhouse gas emissions.
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Construction for Phase 1 of the expansion started in 2017 and took four years to complete, according to the Alberta government’s major projects website.
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Phase 2 began last year, and the city says all work is expected to be completed by 2030.
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Acquisition won’t impact current landowner’s operations: city
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The subject site is a 3.4-acre, triangular parcel. It’s the southernmost section of a 22-acre property owned by IKO Industries, a rooftop shingles manufacturing company.
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At Tuesday’s public hearing, council heard the city has an agreement with IKO to purchase the parcel and consolidate it with the adjacent sewage treatment plant.
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A representative from IKO confirmed that agreement, telling Postmedia the sale won’t affect the company’s operations.
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“It’s an area presently used for some product storage and as part of the logistics route for trucks coming in to pick up finished goods at the site,” said Derek Fee, IKO Industries’ director of consumer and corporate affairs.
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“What we’re going to do is make some adjustments to the logistics route coming into the plant and we’re going to repurpose a building that’s presently not being used for storage to replace the warehousing that will be gone as a result of the transfer of this parcel to the city.”
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‘This is essential work,’ says area councillor
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When approving the city’s 2025 budget last November, council authorized the city to borrow more than $1 billion to help fund various water infrastructure projects, including upgrades at the Bonnybrook plant.
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Carra called expanding the city’s largest sewage treatment plant an important endeavour as Calgary’s population continues to rise.
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“Our sewage treatment is world class and the Bonnybrook treatment plant is the flagship of that world-class treatment,” he said. “As the city grows, we need to be able to treat more and more sewage as more and more people flush their toilets.”